Has Trump readied his Russia-Ukraine peace plan?

The US administration of President Donald Trump might present its highly anticipated Ukraine peace plan during the Munich Security Conference in Germany next week, reported Bloomberg, citing sources familier with the matter.

The plan would be unveiled by Trump’s special peace envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg.

While details of the peace plan are not available publicly, senior US officials have hinted that US would be pursuing the policy of “peace through strength”.

Potential elements of the peace deal

The report said that the plan includes a proposal to freeze the conflict, without specifying the fate of territories in eastern Ukraine currently occupied by Russia. The proposal also warrants this guarantee from Moscow that it will never attack Ukraine again.

Kellogg earlier hinted that US would press Ukraine to hold elections soon after a breakthrough is reached. On Wednesday (February 5), the former military general confirmed he would be attending the summit in Germany.

Interaction between Kremlin, Trump administration intensifies

Meanwhile, Russia has acknowledged that its interaction with the Trump administration had intensified over the past days.

The Kremlin on Wednesday (February 5) also praised the 47th US president for saying that it was a mistake of the West to draw Ukraine towards Nato.

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“I can say here that there are indeed contacts between individual departments, and they have intensified recently,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “I can’t tell you any other details.”

Zelensky ‘willing’ to meet Putin

Earlier this week, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky also showed his willingness to talk to his Russian counterpart, whom he termed his “enemy”.

“If that is the only set-up in which we can bring peace to the citizens of Ukraine and not lose people, definitely we will go for this set-up,” the Ukrainian leader said on Tuesday in an interview with British journalist Piers Morgan.

He added that he was ready to “move to the diplomatic track” but he won’t be kind to “enemy Putin”.

Zelensky is also seeing eye to eye with Trump on the issue of sharing Ukrainian rare earth minerals with the US in exchange for military and economic aid.

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“We are open to the fact that all of this can be developed with our partners, who are helping us to defend our land and pushing the enemy back with their weapons, their presence and sanctions packages. And this is absolutely just,” Zelensky said Tuesday.

The Ukrainian leader added that the proposal over rare earth minerals had come up in discussions with Trump when he visited the US in September last year before US presidential elections to present his so-called ‘victory plan.’

Long way to go

But even as the pieces of the Ukrainian puzzle appear to be falling into place, the road to the peace still remains rocky.

Russia has ruled out agreeing to a freeze of conflict until the Ukrainian forces are driven out of its Kursk region.

Additionally, while both Trump and Putin have signalled their intention to boost communication to end the conflict, a blueprint for the same is yet to be drawn.

“This is a long-term process. We’ve got to get a lot of pieces in place. Russia is part of it. Europe’s part of it. Ukraine is part of it. And unless they are looking at conducting this for the—I would argue, the greater part of 2025 and probably in 2026, they are not going to get the type of outcome that they’re looking for,” said Thomas Graham, a fellow at Council on Foreign Relations.

(With inputs from agencies)